The Voice of a Pioneer, Zlatko Cosic, 2011, video, 6:00

The Voice of a Pioneer, Zlatko Ćosić, 2011, video, 6:00

The Voice of a Pioneer is a three channel video installation which combines performance and non-fiction narrative in relation to displacement, identity, and communication. The ritual of becoming a Pioneer, an imposed identity of the former Yugoslavian government, is connected to the rituals required when placed in a new culture. The new environment becomes a stage for one to constantly adjust and transform identity. Using the footage of my father searching for his house destroyed in the war and building a new house, I as the Pioneer, communicate to him and the audience about memories interlaced with the effects of war.

THE VOICE OF A PIONEER (6:00) [VIDEO]

"My experience was that of seeing a son relate to his father's hardship, shouldered to benefit his family and make for a better life. I loved the universality of this concept, emphasized by the tragedy of war and the figurative and literal sense of homelessness; the compulsion to rebuild; the sense of loyalty, sovereignty and nationalism that come with mutual sacrifice and purpose; the disrobing of the uniform to wear the common clothes of each day...the disrobing of a former identity, the past and familiarity that you must encounter while continuing to acclimate to this foreign land." Tom Gaither-Ganim

EXHIBITIONS

:: MFA Thesis Exhibition, Kemper Art Museum, Washington University, St. Louis, May 6 - August 1, 2011
:: Atelje 26, Belgrade, Serbia, June 22-24, 2011
:: Banja Luka College, Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 24, 2011
:: Kemper Art Museum and Steinberg Auditorium, Washington University, St. Louis, presentation of video installations with discussion about the book The Cellist of Sarajevo and photos by Gilles Peress, October 13 and 14, 2011
:: Play It Again, ACE Curatorial Collective, Hunter Times Square Gallery, New York, November 18-19, 2011
:: The Penitentiary, the Battery Project, a collaborative site-specific art exhibition in abandoned war-era prisons throughout Eastern Europe. Patarei "The Battery" Prison, Tallinn, Estonia, June 1 - July 15, 2014

PRESS

:: Webster’s Zlatko Ćosić Portrays Nature Through Motion Painting by Yue Zhang, The Journal, November 16, 2016